


finding home

by prettylittlepasha



Series: adventures of a baroness and her bestie [1]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Best Friends, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4943809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettylittlepasha/pseuds/prettylittlepasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started back on Elpis, but it takes until they're having a quiet night at home for it to actually happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Their first order of business, Aurelia tells him, is to find doctors who can put his face back to his own.

Aurelia hunts down the best plastic surgeons she can find. Literally hunts some of them down at gun point because they’d been rude and tried to ignore her polite—if demanding—calls. Every cosmetic surgeon they find says the surgery to return his face to his own is too risky, that it’s a miracle that he survived the original surgeries. It’s exactly what he expects to hear, that he’ll be stuck looking like Jack for the rest of his life. He knew this would be the case, really he does, yet he can’t help the way it twists his stomach up like a balloon animal.

But Aurelia refuses to accept it.

She makes the gathered doctors tell her about alternatives. If they can’t put his face completely back to normal without killing Timothy, then what can they do?

The first thing any of the doctors agree to is a nose job. One of the few doctors who wasn’t too busy cowering away from Aurelia’s intense stare tells them that it’s doable and won’t risk Timothy’s life. They swear that changing the shape of his nose will change the entire look of his face. He’s more than skeptical of the validity of that statement, but what does he have to lose, really.

The nose job does change a lot of things. They shrink the bridge of his nose, alter the slope of it, change the angle of the tip, and reshape his nostrils. All in all it… actually changes how he looks more than he expected it to.

One of the doctors does something weird with an obnoxiously large machine that turns his eyes back to the dark brown he’d been born with.

After that is some weird… skin treatment that Timothy tried to tune out the description of because it sounded _terrifying._ But he has freckles again. He can’t stop staring in mirrors and poking at them, turning to Aurelia and announcing, proudly, that he has freckles again.

He shaves off the ridiculous soul patch, lets his hair grow out to something shaggier than it’d ever been in his life. Aurelia brings home ginger red hair dye one night and helps him apply it.

He still doesn’t look like he used to, but he doesn’t look like Jack anymore.

* * *

 

Living with Aurelia is nothing like Timothy expected when she’d taken him by the arm and told him he was going home with her after Elpis.

Sure, the turbo-mansion is almost comically opulent, with its fucking _diamond_ chandeliers in every room, the furniture made of the tanned hides of endangered species, elegant paintings of each Hammerlock family member lining the entryway.

But then there are quiet nights where Timothy just sits on the couch with Aurelia watching stupid action movies, the two of them mocking how poor the explosion effects are—he can do that with a greater understanding of what a _real_ explosion actually feels like behind him now.

One night Aurelia comes home—and doesn’t that feel weird, calling a _mansion_ home?—and drops something on his stomach while he’s in the middle of a nap.

Timothy startles awake, a pout already on his face when he sees just what she’d dropped on him.

A tiny, fluffy black kitten stares up at him with big yellow eyes. He breaks into a grin as he carefully picks up the kitten to hold up to his face and coo over.

Aurelia looks pleased with herself.

* * *

 

Timothy has no idea what their relationship is at this point. He knows they were something like friends on Elpis, Aurelia being one of the only ones who actively wanted to know what his name is, who would accompany him through Concordia whenever they were between missions.

But things are different now. Now he lives in her turbo-mansion, he goes with her to extravagant parties with their arms linked together, they go hunting together, she drags him off to the most popular clubs full of famous people he’s never heard of and pulls him onto the dance floor. They practically live out of each other’s pocket at this point. Aurelia has spent a truly _obscene_ amount of money on him by now and she brushes off any protests he makes, says she likes spending money on him. Whenever people see him on his own they ask him where Aurelia is, like they’re an inseparable pair.

He doesn’t quite know what they are to each other now. They’re certainly friends but there’s some undercurrent to what they are that he just can’t parse out for the life of him.

It all comes to a head one night when they’re lounging on one of the stupidly expensive leather couches in one of the expansive living rooms, some opera from one of the Edens playing on the TV when Aurelia turns to him.

Timothy catches her staring from the corner of his eye and shifts to look at her. He waits for her to say something as she takes him in appraisingly.

“I’d like to kiss you, Timothy.” Aurelia has a way of asking permission without making it a question. He’s gotten used to it, figured out when she’s doing it. Her eyes lock with his, watch his expression shift as she waits for his response, expectant but still patiently waiting for if he’ll say yes or no.

Timothy is certain his brain short circuits. His jaw works, lips moving in a vain attempt to make words. He takes a moment to surreptitiously pinch himself, needs to make sure that this isn’t some sort of bizarre dream.

But it’s real, as real as anything else in his life.

Aurelia still patiently awaits his response, hands crossed primly in her lap, her eyes never leaving his face.

Timothy takes a deep breath and nods, a smile stretching over his face, butterflies in his stomach.

Aurelia smiles and leans into him. A hand cradles the back of his head as she brushes her lips against his, a barely there pressure that still manages to make his breath stutter in his chest and his eyes slip shut. She presses their lips together more firmly, her fingers tangling in his hair to tip his head back. His hands flutter at her sides before resting on her waist, thumbs rubbing circles into her hips.

Then she’s moving and Timothy is on his back on the couch, Aurelia bracing herself on her forearms against the couch under his head as she settles her weight against him. She nips at his bottom lip, the kiss deepening, Tim’s hands flexing on her hips as her hands pull his hair.

Oh. _Oh._ Timothy is starting to understand what they are to each other now in this world where they live out of each other’s pocket and have become so inseparable. This right here and now, Aurelia’s weight against him, her lips against his, and her hands tangled in his hair. This is a change that is more than welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

It started back on Elpis.

Aurelia noticed it happening on the battlefield at first: Timothy's back against hers in close quarters, the crack of a sniper rifle going off behind her before a particularly sneaky scav falls, a thumbs up thrown her way from his perch on high, the two of them always sharing a moon zoomy with Timothy at the turret. She finds herself moving off with him during missions as they split up to cover more ground. They fall into a natural give and take during fights, tossing ammo to each other, providing cover fire. The most shocking part of it all is how she catches herself scanning the area for him once all of the enemies are dead, the way her shoulders relax when she sees him walking through the gore, his face pulled down into a grimace.

Then it started up when they were at Concordia between missions, too. The six of them all started off at Moxxi's bar sharing a round or two of drinks. The others slowly drifted away from the shared table to attend to various things until it was just her and Timothy left. He tells the most _awful_ puns she’s ever heard in her life that somehow manage to make her genuinely laugh, his face lighting up when a snort escapes her. He buys her drinks when he knows fully well she has more money than god and can buy for herself. He stays at the booth with her well into what passes for night on the moon, keeps her company even though he leans heavily against the table, eyes heavy and words coming slowly.

It’s… nice she decides one day when they’re comparing sniper rifles and talking with an ease that she hasn’t had with anyone in years if ever.

It's only natural that she take Timothy with her. After all, who could leave a friend to Jack's devices.

* * *

 

Timothy slots himself into her life with astonishing ease.

She puts him in the room across the hall from hers once they get to her turbo-mansion. He becomes a fixture of her home, taking the seat across from her at dinner, sitting beside her on a lavish couch for echo casts. It all happens so naturally that it feels as if he'd always been there.

He has the habit of performing these thoughtful gestures that always give her pause, like when she finds zoological magazines with articles her brother wrote on the coffee table. Always remembering just how she takes her tea. Small things that he knows she'll appreciate.

Timothy becomes her plus one to every high society event, looks sharp in a black and white suit with a tie that matches her dress. And for all of his lacking social graces he manages to notice when some pushy asshole is getting on her nerves and always shows up at her side to ask her to dance even though the poor dear has two left feet.

They do everything together now, from the extravagant to the mundane; hunt, attend balls and parties, go on vacation to Aquator, watch truly dreadful movies together.

It dawns on Aurelia that _this_ is what having a best friend is really like. Timothy actually... enjoys spending time her. She finds him joining her in the study whenever she has paperwork to go over for her family's corporation, just to sit at the settee across from her desk. Just to keep her company. He presses his shoulder against hers during parties, a reassuring pressure among a sea of enemies waiting to strike.

* * *

 

They're watching an opera at home one night when she's struck with the desire to kiss him. Timothy has a habit of biting his lip when idle, something she sees him do from the corner of eye. It makes her wonder what he'd taste like.

It's that thought that spurs Aurelia on to break the comfortable silence, "I'd like to kiss you, Timothy."

She waits to see what he'll do, if he'll say yes. She can't help but smile at the way his jaw drops, his eyes going to her lips before he meets her gaze and nods.

The kiss starts off slow, her hand cradling the back of his head as she presses their lips together. She revels in the way his breathing stutters as she leans into him. Her fingers curl into his hair, tipping his head back, and she hums approvingly as his hands settle on her hips.

Aurelia can’t resist pushing Timothy onto his back, settling astride his hips. She braces herself against the couch, keeps her fingers in his hair, scratches her nails across his scalp. She bites at his lip, and his lips fall open for her as the kiss deepens, as her hands pull at his hair.

_This_ is what has been missing. The slide of their lips together, her hands in his hair. His hands a comfortable weight on her hips as she presses him back onto the couch, laying kisses along his jaw, a hint of teeth enough to make him gasp.

Aurelia pulls back from the kiss to catch her breath, push the hair out of her eyes. Can’t help but smile at what a pretty picture Timothy makes under her, his hair disheveled, a blush going all the way down his neck, his lips red, her lipstick smeared over his lips and along his jaw, his breathing labored. The dazed look on Timothy's face is something she could get used to. His hands flex on her hips and he smiles at her, perfectly content.

Aurelia cups his face in her hand, traces her thumb over the blush on his cheek when he leans into her touch. "We're going to have such fun with this, darling."

Timothy huffs a laugh, kisses the heel of her hand. He won't quite meet her eye, nervous about something. "We're still, um, best friends right? Just... best friends who do more now?"

She smiles, all teeth and promise, before leaning in to nip at his neck, drawing a startled sound from him.

"Oh, Timothy, darling I wouldn't have it any other way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just wanted to do a bit on how they started the something more aspect of the relationship from both of their perspectives.
> 
> hit me up on my [tumblr](http://prettylittlepasha.tumblr.com) if you like


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